Do the different preamp options on my Liquid Saffire 56 add latency to my recordings?

This applies to the Liquid Saffire 56

The Liquid Pre-amps on the Liquid Saffire 56 introduce 11 samples of delay to the audio stream. This is due to the Digital Signal Processing required to emulate the preamps.

Depending on the sample rate you are using, audio passed through inputs 1 and 2 will be the delayed by the following:

Sample Rate (Hz)

Time Delay (milliseconds)

Offset Distance (centimeters)

44100

0.25

8.56

48000

0.23

7.86

88200

0.12

4.28

96000

0.11

3.93

176200

0.062

2.14

192000

0.057

1.97

Audio recorded through the Liquid Pres can be moved forward by 11 samples in your DAW to account for the delay, however, in 'real world' recording situations the user may choose to ignore this delay.

For stereo recording, either 2 Liquid Preamps should be used, or 2 standard Preamps should be used,

For ensemble recording, where more than 2 preamps are used to record, this delay should cause no audible artefacts. When two microphones are placed in a recording space, regardless of what pre-amps or interfaces are used, there is inevitably a delay between them unless they are placed at exactly the same distance from the source. This will mean that the audio arriving at the two mics, even if they are recording the same source will be non time coherent. The non time coherence - i.e. similar audio but with a delay between each mic, will be significantly more apparent due to the physical mic placement than any delay introduced by the Liquid Preamps.

Users of the Liquid Saffire 56 should set up their microphones exactly the same was as they always do, by moving the microphones around until the sound is right.